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Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#104851: Nov 14th 2015 at 3:01:06 PM

"too soon" is also fairly disingenuous way to stifle debate. Those who change the world are those who look upon great and terrible events and understand the implications.

Of course, this leads everyone to rush to do so, some in an effort to look clever, others to push a narrative, whether for the sake of their own ability to understand the world or to advance their agenda in other fields.

Fighting fire with fire is max retarded, though, especially when most mass shootings could have been tipped off at the source, either through sensible gun ownership policy, intelligence work (allegedly the cops in southern Germany nabbed the guy who supplied the attackers' weapons before the attack, but they didn't get enough from him to make their information get heeded by Paris), or attacking of root causes.

Trained individuals in the area absolutely can make a difference, as the incident on the French train showed, but honestly, if you're at that point, then you've already failed several spot checks.

JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#104852: Nov 14th 2015 at 3:06:50 PM

Well the left over here,and around the world, idolizes Cuba. Witness how many celebrities or left wing Congressmen,looking at you the Congressional Black Caucus, make pilgrimages to shower affection on the Castro's.

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#104853: Nov 14th 2015 at 3:09:09 PM

What?

Oh really when?
Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#104854: Nov 14th 2015 at 3:13:01 PM

[up][up]What are you talking about? <confused> Cuba has been in the cold both on the Left and Right for decades, now.

Castro burned bridges. <_<

edited 14th Nov '15 3:13:21 PM by Euodiachloris

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#104855: Nov 14th 2015 at 3:15:35 PM

[up]X3 Got any sources on that? I've never heard of any American politician saying anything nice about Cuba. Idiots on the internet sure, but actual politicians...

edited 14th Nov '15 3:15:50 PM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
FalseDichotomy from Your mind :o Since: Oct, 2015 Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#104856: Nov 14th 2015 at 3:21:54 PM

I hate to be "that guy" and change the subject but apparently there's talk of some kind of new Russian weapon called Status-6.

It's an underwater drone that supposed to carry a thermonuclear bomb. But unlike most conventional bombs its main purpose isn't for explosive destruction it's for showering large, populated areas in nuclear fallout.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/12/putins-doomsday-machine-nuclear-weapon-us-russia/

On Nov. 9, President Vladimir Putin attended a meeting in Sochi on the state of the Russian defense industry. He gave a pretty boring speech about defeating U.S. missile defenses to some pretty bored-looking generals.

But there was one aspect of the event that was downright terrifying. Russian television cameras caught a page in a briefing book describing the development of a new nuclear weapons system called Status-6.

It’s nothing less than an underwater drone designed to carry a thermonuclear weapon into foreign ports. If detonated, Status-6 would be capable of dousing cities like New York in massive amounts of radioactive fallout.

At the risk of understating things, this project is bat-shit crazy. It harkens back to the most absurd moments of the Cold War, when nuclear strategists followed the logic of deterrence over the cliff and into the abyss. For his part, Putin seems positively nostalgic.

The Russian government reacted to the broadcast of the briefing-book images as if a major security breach had occurred. The offending footage was edited out of future broadcasts, and when asked about the incident, a Russian presidential spokesperson said: “Indeed, some secrets hit the camera lens, so were subsequently removed. We hope that in the future this will not happen again.”

The Russians doth protest too much. As Dr. Strangelove observed of the Soviet doomsday machine, “Of course, the whole point of a doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret!” (As an aside, it’s worth noting that Status-6 bears more than a passing resemblance to the weapon in that Stanley Kubrick classic; more on that in a bit.)

This isn’t the first we’re hearing of such a project. Details of a similar Russian nuclear underwater drone, armed with a megaton-class thermonuclear warhead, were reported this fall by Bill Gertz of the Washington Free Beacon. (Whatever you think of Gertz’s right-wing politics, he gets some decent scoops.) Gertz’s sources seemed to be describing the same system revealed this week, though they gave him a different name — Kanyon, rather than Status-6. (That shift in nomenclature shouldn’t come as a surprise: Russian military hardware acquires multiple names and numbers as it goes through research and development.)

The briefing-book slide fills in plenty of details about the project. A Russian attack submarine would be able to carry one or more of the drones, which could be remotely launched into the sea. The specs on the slide seem a little optimistic, but they suggest that once roaming wild, the underwater drone could travel a total distance of 10,000 kilometers, or 5,400 nautical miles. It would be designed in such a way that it could be navigated undetected into a U.S. port where it could then detonate its “combat payload” — a thermonuclear weapon. The system would never come up for air or encounter any pesky American missile defenses.

That’s bad enough, but the slide contains an additional gruesome detail: The purpose of the warhead would be to damage “the important components of the adversary’s economy in a coastal area and [inflict] unacceptable damage to a country’s territory by creating areas of wide radioactive contamination that would be unsuitable for military, economic, or other activity for long periods of time.”

Yes, you’re reading that right. It’s not just a thermonuclear weapon. It’s a dirty thermonuclear weapon.

The slide doesn’t explain how the bomb would produce unusually large amounts of radioactive contamination, but it could make use of a concept in nuclear weapons design called “salting.” That involves placing metallic elements around a bomb to capture neutrons and breed radioactive isotopes that maximize the fallout hazard. If the radiation case for a thermonuclear weapon is made with, say, cobalt, the nuclear explosion will likely produce a significant amount of long-lived radioactivity.

This isn’t the sort of dirty bomb that terrorists might build to spread a small amount of radioactive material about and cause panic. We’re talking about a massive, megaton-sized thermonuclear weapon designed to produce significant, long-lasting radiation effects. The first edition of the classic book The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, by Samuel Glasstone and Philip Dolan, had a whole section on radiological warfare, including detailed descriptions of nuclear explosions in shallow water. It turns out the fallout is awfully nasty if you build a bomb capable of sucking up ground material into the explosion. Nearby cities can expect a radioactive slurry to rain down from the skies. This section, by the way, was taken out of later editions as radiological warfare fell out of vogue.

It’s no coincidence that the apocalyptic “doomsday machine” from Dr. Strangelove comprises a series of very large salted nuclear weapons. Status-6 is obviously intended to produce a local, not global, environmental catastrophe — but that’s plenty terrifying. It would be hard to describe the horror that would result from setting off a thermonuclear weapon jacketed with something like cobalt in New York City’s East River.

What sort of sick bastards dream up this kind of weapon? Whether or not the Russians ever build it is almost beside the point. Simply announcing to the world that you find this to be a reasonable approach to deterrence should be enough to mark you out as a dangerous creep.

Of course, it is hard to know how seriously to take the briefing slide. Russian observers have expressed a healthy dose of skepticism. But I get the sense that no one in the Pentagon is laughing — and nor should they be. I’ve written before about the U.S. government’s deployment of JLENS blimps as a response to the threat posed by Russian cruise missiles lurking off the eastern seaboard. No doubt the Pentagon will be commissioning studies for underwater surveillance networks to deal with Russia’s Status-6 project.

But as we consider military responses, I think we also need to think about making better use of international norms against nuclear weapons. Earlier this year, when Putin mused about using nuclear weapons during his seizure of Crimea, U.S. officials pointed out that this wasn’t how a responsible nuclear power talks. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter recently argued, “Moscow’s nuclear saber-rattling raises questions about Russian leaders’ commitment to strategic stability, their respect for norms against the use of nuclear weapons, and whether they respect the profound caution nuclear-age leaders showed with regard to the brandishing of nuclear weapons.” If U.S. officials were intent on undermining trust in Russia on nuclear matters, they could hardly ask for better evidence than Moscow’s plan to build a nuclear weapon designed to maximize humanitarian and ecological catastrophe.

Unfortunately, U.S. officials have yet to press this case as strongly as they might — a reflection, I think, of Washington’s continuing hostility toward international efforts to focus on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war. Most U.S. officials treat the so-called “humanitarian initiative” as, at best, a stalking horse for a hasty convention banning the possession of nuclear weapons and, at worst, a plot to undermine the credibility of U.S. security guarantees around the world. Washington finally sent a delegation to attend the most recent conference in Vienna, but their discomfort was obvious. They mostly seemed interested in twisting the arms of U.S. allies, like Japan, to get them to abstain from the U.N. General Assembly’s resolution on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons.

That is a strange, and misguided, diplomatic approach for a country with a president who has made it an explicit policy to seek a world without nuclear weapons. Even before the existence of Status-6 was known, it was in Washington’s interest to strengthen the norm against nuclear weapons use. It is nearly impossible to imagine a scenario in which the United States would find it in its interest to initiate the use of nuclear weapons. And I can’t imagine a U.S. president asking for the development of radiological weapons to target Russian civilians.

So why not simply say that? Why not admit that nuclear weapons are awful? And that it would be a humanitarian catastrophe if even a single bomb were ever dropped — or if a drone were developed that had no purpose other than to inflict ecological catastrophe? Salted bombs were once the stuff of dark comedies and nightmare fantasies; now, they are staring back at us from a briefing slide.

Refusing to admit the awfulness of nuclear weapons puts us in the awkward position of making common cause with Putin at a time when he is imploring his defense industry to find ways to drench Manhattan in radioactive slurry. I don’t feel like allying with the Russians against the rest of the world, and I certainly don’t want a salted bomb to poison Russian civilians in retaliation; I’m not quite sure why U.S. officials don’t feel the same way.

We need to think about how to deter Russia from ever using something like Status-6 and how to defend against it in the event Putin loses his marbles. But the first task is to make sure that Moscow pays a price for its renewed emphasis on nuclear weapons and nuclear threats. We need to point out how retrograde Putin’s thinking is, from his belief that he can build Russia’s security on the insecurity of its neighbors to his desperate effort to remain relevant by threatening global nuclear holocaust.

Maybe that means the State Department should develop presentations on the dangers of radiological warfare for the next conference on humanitarian consequences. Or perhaps President Barack Obama should schedule a visit to Hiroshima to draw a contrast between how he sees nuclear weapons and how Putin sees them. Whatever the approach, we need to make clear that the people seeking to eliminate nuclear weapons are our allies, not our enemies. The world’s anti-nuclear hippies, with their purple hair and piercings, are a heck of lot more sane than Putin, with his grotesque plastic surgery, coterie of doughy generals, and ghastly underwater bomb.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34797252

Of course as noted by The Daily Beast, it could just be a hoax aimed at scaring us: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/11/putin-tv-russia-s-got-a-dirty-bomb.html

JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#104857: Nov 14th 2015 at 3:22:55 PM

Well our celebrates sure love him Spielberg for one visited Cuba, ate dinner with Fidel, and called the event "the eighth most important hours of my life. I have heard of this before, so I trust it, but the source seems biased, so take the others with a grain of salt.

And according to Politico the Congressional Black Caucus heaped praise on him as well. Politico may be a Washington insider horse race paper, but they don't seem,to me, to be the types to outright make up quotes.

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
DrDougsh Since: Jan, 2001
#104858: Nov 14th 2015 at 3:26:14 PM

Well, I've heard of American celebrities visiting Kim Jung-un and calling him a great guy, but I wouldn't take that as indicative of anyone's majority opinion.

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#104859: Nov 14th 2015 at 3:28:52 PM

[up]X3 We already talked about it in the military thread, I believe the response was "meh, Russia could already wipe us out with nukes"

[up][up] None of the congressional quotes are praise, the quotes aren't fake, what's fake is them being categorised as "heaping praise". The closest to praising is maybe the stuff Bobby Rush said, but that's it.

edited 14th Nov '15 3:31:50 PM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#104860: Nov 14th 2015 at 3:29:24 PM

Like it or not celebrities have a great deal of influence on public opinion. When leftist talk about Cuba's human rights, I find it's like they talk about Roman Polanski raping a girl, most are ether dismissive, victim blaming, or stand around awkwardly.

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
Deadbeatloser22 from Disappeared by Space Magic (Great Old One) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#104861: Nov 14th 2015 at 3:31:19 PM

To be fair, BEST KOREA has a habit of gulaging tourists if they think they might say unkind things about the regime when they leave.

"Yup. That tasted purple."
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#104862: Nov 14th 2015 at 4:21:05 PM

"too soon" is also fairly disingenuous way to stifle debate.
This is true. It's the go-to "defense" against gun control debates every time another spree shooting happens in the US.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#104863: Nov 14th 2015 at 4:27:01 PM

Are we talking about the Paris terrorist attacks? It's not really a matter of gun control, and I would hope that nobody is seriously making that argument.

edited 14th Nov '15 4:28:08 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
pwiegle Cape Malleum Majorem from Nowhere Special Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Singularity
Cape Malleum Majorem
#104864: Nov 14th 2015 at 4:27:34 PM

I recall a homicide that happened in Philadelphia a number of years ago. Within minutes of it hitting the airwaves, some politician was spouting off: "This is why we need more gun control!"

...Completely ignoring the fact that the killer used a knife. There were no guns involved.

This Space Intentionally Left Blank.
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#104865: Nov 14th 2015 at 4:29:25 PM

[up][up]Trump is already making that argument saying if France had lighter gun control this wouldn't have happened.

The French Ambassador to the US had some extremely unkind things to say about him.

edited 14th Nov '15 4:29:56 PM by LeGarcon

Oh really when?
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#104866: Nov 14th 2015 at 4:32:52 PM

[up]source for above

Say what you will about "too soon" but people are jumping in before the bodies have even cooled and grief and anger are a terrible position to hold rational debate from.

FalseDichotomy from Your mind :o Since: Oct, 2015 Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#104867: Nov 14th 2015 at 4:33:46 PM

Welp, there's egg on my face. I didn't even think to check there. Still, I wonder when the GOP candidates are going to pick this up and run with it. Kinda plays to their strength, fear-mongering, doesn't it? The idea of a nuclear-tsunami machine.

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#104868: Nov 14th 2015 at 4:34:51 PM

It does and Russia knows that. Which is why they let it leak in the first place.

The idea is ridiculous and the Russians have no intention of building it. But they're more than happy to let our crazies think they are.

The Russians would benefit a lot from the Republicans gaining more traction when it comes to foreign policy.

edited 14th Nov '15 4:42:00 PM by LeGarcon

Oh really when?
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#104869: Nov 14th 2015 at 4:38:10 PM

I don't know about there being no relevance of gun control, how the fuck did the attackers get their hands on automatic weapons, explosives and grenades?

There's a reason London hasn't been hit like Paris has, part of that is lack of free movement and a generally tougher security state, but another part is going to be that we don't fuck around when it comes to gun control.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#104871: Nov 14th 2015 at 4:43:31 PM

[up][up]Ahem.

Not sure it's completely relevant but it would be bad form to ignore it.

edited 14th Nov '15 4:44:49 PM by Elle

Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#104872: Nov 14th 2015 at 4:46:29 PM

Well, "Too Soon" is reasonable in some circumstances. A person politicizing a tragedy can often come across as a smug jerk saying "I told you so!" rather than a person who actually cares.

In the case of Trump, even if his statement were correct, it was singularly rude of him to state it within a week of the event.

Leviticus 19:34
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#104873: Nov 14th 2015 at 4:46:33 PM

[up][up] Notice how they didn't use automatic weaponry during 7/7, there's a reason the 7/7 body count is lower then what happened in Paris.

[up]X3 True, the Germans actually caught the smuggler guy a few days before, but some work needs to be put into finding out how he got that weaponry and how he was transporting it.

edited 14th Nov '15 4:46:50 PM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#104874: Nov 14th 2015 at 4:57:02 PM

I don't think body count is a particularly relevant statistic; someone wants to do bodily harm to another badly enough, they can find a way to acquire the means no mater what they are.

But I'm not a complete gun nut: I'm generally in favor of the right of law-abiding citizens to own guns but also in favor of restricting access to them from people with a criminal history or documented mental instability. Controlling their movements across international borders is an entirely different kettle of fish and I presume the one that will be the issue at stake in the current crisis.

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#104875: Nov 14th 2015 at 4:57:43 PM

You know, related to the Cuba thing, I'm pretty sure that majority opinion doesn't actually think much about Cuba. In the sense that it's largely not even been a concern for years because it's a tiny little island that can't hurt us. Pretty much a non-issue in regards to the left of the US, except that the embargo went on too long and never achieved its intended purpose.

Also, just because celebrities are influential doesn't mean that some of them saying Cuba is great is actually going to make a lot of people, or more specifically career politicians, suddenly heap a whole bunch of praise on Cuba.

Jack, this is a case of you going off the rails again and making bigger things out of really tiny things.


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